CODING & ROBOTICS AT ESSENDON KEILOR COLLEGE.
Some of our year 4-6 students participated in another S.O.L.E. coding session recently. Again we partnered with Aberfeldie Primary School for the activity. Our students participated in anumber of experiments and activities based on Chemistry and Robotics. Staff from the school and year 11 mentor students from the College led the activities.
This is another example of the fantastic “extra” opportunities that our school offers in S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths). We will continue these partnerships in 2017 and build on our Coding and Robotics strategy which has been so successful this year.Here are some comments from our students.
Mariam:
Yesterday we drove to Essendon Keilor College. We drove in Mr. Kenna and Jo’s cars. I went in Jo’s cars first and then when we were going home I was in Mr. Kenna’s car. We did some great experiments. I like the Robotics.
Affan:
Emma showed us how the 3D printer works and she showed us a model of what it looks like when you actually print in 3D. We printed a plastic minion and it was really cool. Then we put some acitone on the minion and it made it look really shiny.
Natasha:
The first activity I did was programming a Lego robot. We had a computer robot and had to program it so it went where we wanted it to. We programmed the robot by using the computer and then hooked up the computer to the robot. The robot then knew where to move. It could sense when it was near a wall and would rotate away from the wall in a different direction. Our job was to get the robot to stop in a parking spot on the floor. A group of boys from Aberfeldie primary school got their robot to stop only 3cm from the parking spot - it was amazing. To be honest, Prisha, Indi, Mariam and I have never done robotic coding, I have only done coding on the computer. It was great.
Omar:
We drove there in Mr. Kenna’s car. A teacher called Angel came out and introduced herself to us. She then led us into the science room. Then there was another lady named Emma and she showed us a little film clip from the “Hunger Games” and how they made the fire on the character’s backs. She then stopped the clip and then used this secret safe chemical formula. She put the formula on her hand and lit it.The fire lit it on her hand. Luckily she didn’t get burnt. It was all safe. It only burnt for a second. A few minutes later she showed us how to do this but we didn’t really do it. Then later on we put on safety glasses, science lab coats with gloves. Then we mixed acid andsome magnesium ribbon in the science tubes and waited about 5 minutes but nothing happened. Other people had the lid pop off their tube. Then a girl came with a lighter and put it in our tubes and POP! It made a loud noise.